Leonard Cassuto
Professor
BA, Columbia University; AM, Harvard University; PhD, Harvard University
Research and Teaching Interests: American literature and culture; nineteenth-century African American literature; disability studies; creative writing; American higher education
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Leonard Cassuto is the author or editor of ten books on American literature and culture, most recently Academic Writing as if Readers Matter (2024). His recent books, The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education (with Robert Weisbuch; 2021), and The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (2015), were inspired by his regular column, “The Graduate Adviser,” for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Other books include The Cambridge History of the American Novel (General Editor, 2011), and The Cambridge Companion to Baseball (2011), winner of the Best Anthology Award from the North American Society of Sports Historians. His Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories was nominated for the Edgar and Macavity Awards and named one of the Ten Best Books of 2008 in the crime and mystery category by The Los Angeles Times. Cassuto is also an award-winning journalist who writes on subjects ranging from science to sports, in venues from The New York Times to salon.com. His next book will be 5 Big Ideas to Save the Humanities (with Robert Weisbuch), under contract at Princeton University Press. His website is www.lcassuto.com.